- From: Kornel Lesinski <kornel@geekhood.net>
- Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:12:54 +0100
- To: public-html@w3.org
On Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:48:16 +0100, Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@målform.no> wrote: > And also: Every time the HTML4 validator discover an element in an > illegal context, it typically tells you to nest it inside a <object> or > <map> or <button> if you want to have it there. > > I find it hard to believe that all these things are side effects of the > fact that HTML4 is expressed as a DTD. Note that analogous use of <INS> and <DEL> is explicitly forbidden in HTML4: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#h-9.4 Given that I think it was not intention to have "wildcard" elements in HTML 4 that allow violation of content model "if you want to have it there". Assuming it's not simply limitation of DTD and omission in the spec, my theory is that <object>, <button> and <map> were expected to be rendered as inline-block (replaced) elements, and given HTML4's strong correlation of display model and content model, it made sense to allow block content in these elements. <p>foo<object style="display:inline-block">bar<br>baz</object>quz</p> However, in current implementations <object> fallback is rendered as if <object> was inline: <p>foo<object data="http://example.invalid">bar<br>baz</object>quz</p> so that reason is gone. Personally I don't like the error message suggesting insertion of <object>, because it's misleading. It's extremely unlikely that author wanted to embed an object, put fallback in, but forgot the <object> element itself. It seems to me that this error message is just unfortunate side-effect of validator's implementation rather than deliberately chosen authoring advice. Such error is much more likely to be triggered by unclosed inline element or author's misunderstanding of HTML content model. Validator should suggest to close inline element or explain that block elements are not allowed in inlines, instead of suggesting a fudge that only hides true cause of the error. -- regards, Kornel Lesiński
Received on Sunday, 27 June 2010 14:13:35 UTC